Yeah I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how it works out. There are pros and cons to playing on busy or slow servers. Sometimes I just want to play by myself and on a dead server I don't have other people killing the things I need for my missions or whatnot, and no distracting chat. Then when I want to play with other people I play on a busier server. I know other people too who like playing on lower-population servers more than busier ones. It's all about what you want from the game and going to a server that'll provide it. I like being spread out anyway so then I can do just that, and also when the idiots in the chat on one server get to me, I can go play on my low traffic server and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Well, my current server is already basically dead (maybe two people on a planet at any given time, if I'm lucky), so it's not like my gameplay can get much worse anyway. I did actually have a similar idea as far as what you suggested there with the apostrophe. I remembered that a friend of mine has a character whose name contains a letter with an umlaut, which got me thinking that if I can't have the name as is, I can replace a letter with something similar or add my old legacy name in in some manner. Like, using Riviyan as an example again, and my legacy name is Tem, so I could make it something like Riviyan'tem and say it's a local naming convention. XP And it's still entirely possible the name is available, anyway. Cross that bridge if/when I come to it. Though you're wrong about at least getting to pick my server now, since we don't. We're assigned servers to transfer to.

Yeah that's absolutely true. I'm completely willing not to transfer at all if the names are taken. Whoever got them on that server did get them first and in that case I'd stay on the one where I got the names first.

Reserving the names is a fine idea, but as I don't know my destination server it would be difficult. I am not going to create dummy characters on every single PVE server in case it's my destination server.

To be completely honest I had never thought of doing that. I will know my destination server before I have to decide to transfer so I may do that. I will wait for an official response in any case. I wasn't sure if this was how introducing server transfers worked in general or if it was as unusually chaotic as it seems, as this is the only MMO I play.

My question is this: if I try to transfer a character and am told that the name is already taken, can I cancel the transfer of that character if I don't want to rename the character? I would rather finish their stories on a nearly-dead server than have to rename them. For now I'm just crossing my fingers that my original server will be a destination server. EDIT: I have sent a message directly to customer service and will post here their reply, in case other people are wondering this as well.

I would definitely like to see trans* characters in any media, so long as they're portrayed properly. Actually, there was one episode of Bones where the victim was an MtF minister that was handled incredibly well, but that's really the only example I can think of. Given how much gender identity varies from person to person it seems to me like there is a lot of potential for storytelling. And it would be really nice to see recognition that 'tranny' and 'he/she' are offensive as a general rule (unless a trans* person self-identifies as such and then the term should be used only for them, if they've requested it). I'm not FtM so I can't speak to their experiences, but I know there is a divide between binary trans* people and non-binary trans* people (like me). I would LOVE to see a serious character (that is, not comedy relief) that is non-binary, like bi/pangender, non/agender, third gender. I realise as far as character options in a game like TOR that having more gender options would be incredibly difficult, though I see the M/F step in the builder to be choosing their sex rather than gender. Biological fact rather than identity.

I'm trans*, and if I wanted to only play characters that represent my gender, then I'm SOL. I'd better drop gaming and find some other hobby, because I have yet to even have the option of playing a non-gendered character (except for things like DnD, which has obviously more options regarding character creation). I've only been asked once in chat if I'm female (while playing a female char), and I wasn't offended. i only really think of other players in terms of their character anyway, since it's the main interaction I have with them. I don't care about the identity of the player at all, gender included. For all I know I've been grouping with only one player for three months, with different characters, and if I was, however unlikely? Couldn't care in the slightest, so long as we're both enjoying the game. (Though I might be a bit concerned that our hypothetical player had developed a stalker-y fixation XP). Here I have about a 50/50 mix of male and female characters, and I choose based on what sort of character (ie, characterisation, backstory) I want to play. Or, in the case of my Warrior, companions. I started with a female Warrior, but wanted to romance Vette, so I made another Warrior, male this time. As far as my personal orientation goes, I'm primarily interested in women, but that doesn't play any significant role in my choices regarding the gender of my characters. Well, except that one, the male Warrior and the whole Vette thing (can I have one free pass here? I myself might have a tiny crush on Vette, so...). But I also plan to play through with the female, so I can explore the romance options available there. Because of spoilers I want to see how a romance with Quinn affects the story. Also, I like female characters because action hero ladies are AWESOME. (And since the topic came up, I like the butt on female body type 4. XP)